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[News] The Coronavirus Good News thread



AZ Gull

@SeagullsAcademy @seagullsacademy.bsky.social
Oct 14, 2003
13,091
Chandler, AZ
The Rachel Maddow show has, a couple of times now, featured the company Kinsa Health and their smart thermometer (when people take their temperature the data is uploaded, anonymously, via a free app). Up until now it has helped to track the spread of flu throughout the United States, typically being ahead of the CDC's tools by a couple of weeks. During this pandemic they started adjusting the readings by expected seasonal flu, to give an early (and potentially critical) warning of developing coronavirus hotspots - Coronavirus: San Francisco start-up helps to track spread of COVID-19 using smart thermometer

Their data is currently showing that virtually the whole of Florida is a hotspot - don't be surprised if, over the next few days, cases surge in that state (where the Governor has been dragging his feet on implementing any form of control).

I guess this should be classed as potential good news (using developing technology and data to inform governmental decision-making); it does rely on not having dunderheads in positions of power though.
 




middletoenail

Well-known member
Jul 2, 2008
3,580
Hong Kong
The Rachel Maddow show has, a couple of times now, featured the company Kinsa Health and their smart thermometer (when people take their temperature the data is uploaded, anonymously, via a free app). Up until now it has helped to track the spread of flu throughout the United States, typically being ahead of the CDC's tools by a couple of weeks. During this pandemic they started adjusting the readings by expected seasonal flu, to give an early (and potentially critical) warning of developing coronavirus hotspots - Coronavirus: San Francisco start-up helps to track spread of COVID-19 using smart thermometer

Their data is currently showing that virtually the whole of Florida is a hotspot - don't be surprised if, over the next few days, cases surge in that state (where the Governor has been dragging his feet on implementing any form of control).

I guess this should be classed as potential good news (using developing technology and data to inform governmental decision-making); it does rely on not having dunderheads in positions of power though.
One of the reasons why the virus has being fairly well contained in China is because the quarantining and self-isolation is controlled by government apps.

Technology can really help in cases such as viruses and where you have so much big data and moment of people to analyse.
 




vegster

Sanity Clause
May 5, 2008
28,272
WOW words fail me.


An Italian priest died of coronavirus after giving a respirator that his parishioners bought for him to a younger patient, it has been revealed.

Giuseppe Berardelli, 72, from Casigno in Italy's hardest-hit Lombardy region, died in a local hospital in recent days after being diagnosed with the virus.

Berardelli had been given a respirator - which are in desperately short supply - by parishioners concerned about his health but decided to give it to a younger patient who he didn't know but was struggling to breathe because of the virus.
Yes, saw this, what an incredibly Christian thing to do. RIP Father.
 


vegster

Sanity Clause
May 5, 2008
28,272
I had some very good news today. My daughter, who has the same heart condition as me, but, without the cardiac arrests, has been told by her employer that she can home isolate for 3 months. A high temperature could be a factor in her condition worsening from a benign condition, to the more serious version, that I have. She works for Post office counters and they have been less than helpful until today, when in a complete reverse of their previous stance, they have told her to take 3 months, if she needs it.
It has been scary for her, I have an implanted defribulator that will save my life, she has nothing.
It's an incredibly frightening time for so many at the moment. All the things we have taken for granted over the years suddenly take on a new perspective.

So far we in Sussex have not been hit too hard with the virus and so hopefully the lock down / distancing will keep it in check. Good luck and best wishes to you and the family.
 




vegster

Sanity Clause
May 5, 2008
28,272
Apologies if this has already been shared but I think this piece from the FT counts as good news:

The new coronavirus may already have infected far more people in the UK than scientists had previously estimated — perhaps as much as half the population — according to modelling by researchers at the University of Oxford. If the results are confirmed, they imply that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with Covid-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment, said Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study. The vast majority develop very mild symptoms or none at all. “We need immediately to begin large-scale serological surveys — antibody testing — to assess what stage of the epidemic we are in now,” she said. The modelling by Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group indicates that Covid-19 reached the UK by mid-January at the latest. Like many emerging infections, it spread invisibly for more than a month before the first transmissions within the UK were officially recorded at the end of February. The research presents a very different view of the epidemic to the modelling at Imperial College London, which has strongly influenced government policy. “I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model,” said Prof Gupta. However, she was reluctant to criticise the government for shutting down the country to suppress viral spread, because the accuracy of the Oxford model has not yet been confirmed and, even if it is correct, social distancing will reduce the number of people becoming seriously ill and relieve severe pressure on the NHS during the peak of the epidemic. The Oxford study is based on a what is known as a “susceptibility-infected-recovered model” of Covid-19, built up from case and death reports from the UK and Italy. The researchers made what they regard as the most plausible assumptions about the behaviour of the virus. The modelling brings back into focus “herd immunity”, the idea that the virus will stop spreading when enough people have become resistant to it because they have already been infected. The government abandoned its unofficial herd immunity strategy — allowing controlled spread of infection — after its scientific advisers said this would swamp the National Health Service with critically ill patients. But the Oxford results would mean the country had already acquired substantial herd immunity through the unrecognised spread of Covid-19 over more than two months. If the findings are confirmed by testing, then the current restrictions could be removed much sooner than ministers have indicated. Although some experts have shed doubt on the strength and length of the human immune response to the virus, Prof Gupta said the emerging evidence made her confident that humanity would build up herd immunity against Covid-19. To provide the necessary evidence, the Oxford group is working with colleagues at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent to start antibody testing on the general population as soon as possible, using specialised “neutralisation assays which provide reliable readout of protective immunity,” Prof Gupta said. They hope to start testing later this week and obtain preliminary results within a few days.
Could be that this is right to some extent. Its entirely possible that we have had this infection circulating now for a while and many of us have had it without showing too many symptoms. However, the virus may have evolved over that time to become more deadly ( a higher mortality rate) recently to newly infected people.

Hopefully, if we have caught and recovered from the early version of Covid - 19 we have immunity to the more evolved version.

Whatever happens now the world of science is focusing on so many angles of the virus and so there is plenty of hope that we can understand and beat it before too long.
 


lawros left foot

Glory hunting since 1969
NSC Patron
Jun 11, 2011
14,070
Worthing
It's an incredibly frightening time for so many at the moment. All the things we have taken for granted over the years suddenly take on a new perspective.

So far we in Sussex have not been hit too hard with the virus and so hopefully the lock down / distancing will keep it in check. Good luck and best wishes to you and the family.


Thank you, stay safe.
 
















essbee1

Well-known member
Jun 25, 2014
4,725
Well done the Board. Proud to be an Albion fan.

Just on National BBC about free tickets for NHS staff and the season ticket holiday!
 


RossyG

Well-known member
Dec 20, 2014
2,630
Tweeted by RTE’s Health Correspondent. Seems a bit vague, but great news if true.

28E907FD-3F9A-4BDE-BD63-FA346038AD19.jpeg
 




studio150

Well-known member
Jul 30, 2011
30,226
On the Border
Just back from the supermarket, and better stocked than last week (still no pasta, rice, tins soup, tins veg..._

Also the controlling of numbers in store works really well as you can get round quickly as no one blocking aisles or stopping for a chat in front of the item you want.
 


Swansman

Pro-peace
May 13, 2019
22,320
Sweden
If we in Sweden dont get a significant increase in ICU patients or deaths today either, I'm going to start wonder if we are actually doing something right. That would be pretty good.
 












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